But the horror-movie touches are set against a frighteningly real landscape.

Now the ship had gone and from the slender free-board of an over-loaded boat the scene looked frighteningly real.

The map was frighteningly real.

Joe's death made the prospect of unbearable loneliness frighteningly real.

The inverted logic that permitted such thinking seemed for the moment frighteningly real.

But the stakes have grown too high for this diplomatic minuet; the risk of war spreading to Macedonia grows frighteningly real.

In the presence of the Home Secretary, the threat becomes frighteningly real to Meg.

When family responsibilities force Luke to return to Dublin, taking Tracey with him, their games of risk and chance become frighteningly real.

But will children recoil at its frighteningly real themes?

It was no recording they were seeing-this was happening now and it was frighteningly real.